What are the goals we want Cincinnati to reach by 2021?

For the Nov. 7 election, The Enquirer will break from its longstanding tradition of endorsing political candidates in favor of providing our readers with a useful perspective that can inform your decision, without actually telling you how to vote. Today, the editorial board examines the strengths of and questions surrounding Cincinnati's mayoral candidates.

What do we want Cincinnati to look like in 2021? The next mayor of the Queen City will have great power in shaping that vision, and on Nov. 7, voters get to choose between incumbent John Cranley and challenger and City Councilwoman Yvette Simpson. Cincinnati is in the midst of a renaissance. More people and businesses are moving into the central city, and our region is expected to top Tampa-St. Petersburg during the next census as the 17th largest metro area in the United States. The next four years will be critical as Cincinnati seeks to move from good to great.

Our city has a number of peers that have arguably made this leap. The Nashville metro area grew at a rate of roughly 100 people per day during a one-year stretch that ended in July 2016 and has used its vibrant country music scene to become a full-fledged entertainment city. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh is leveraging its educational institutions, namely Carnegie Mellon University, to attract and build a burgeoning tech industry. There is no reason that Cincinnati can’t take a similar step over the next four years. But doing so will require leadership that is committed to aggressively tackling Cincinnati’s most stubborn and difficult challenges. They include:

Vision. Our next mayor must be both a national and international cheerleader, a collaborative leader who is able to work with a broad constituency to get things done yet never lose touch with the plight of the common person. Cincinnati must have a robust, multimodal transportation network, which means addressing our subpar bus system, embracing bike paths and lanes, optimizing our streetcar and exploring efficient alternatives for getting residents and workers from place to place. These are amenities that great cities have to attract the likes of Amazon and others, and seeds entrepreneurship.

Growth and inclusion. Cincinnati is shiny and vibrant, but more than 50percent of its children is impoverished without a good path for upward mobility. A mayor can’t solve poverty, but a mayor can set a tone for others to help do so. Cincinnati’s next mayor will need to be fully engaged in the work already started by the Child Poverty Collaborative if the ambitious goal of moving 10,000 children out of poverty in the next five years is to be achieved. Diversity, inclusion and job growth for all must be among the priorities of our next mayor. Creating an environment where there is equal access to jobs, city contracts and economic opportunity and no one feels left behind is critical. More attention must also be paid to city neighborhoods and the development of business districts, affordable housing, improved safety and cleanliness there.

Cincinnati voters have much to consider Nov. 7 as they choose their next mayor. The Enquirer editorial board extensively talked to both candidates during this campaign season and each possesses strong traits that make them mayoral material.However, both candidates left us with a lingering question that could present challenges for them if elected. The following is the editorial board’s assessment of each candidate.

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Strengths: Simpson’s biography is a powerful testament to her tenacity and toughness. She grew up in a Lincoln Heights housing project, the daughter of a mentally ill mother and absent, cocaine-addicted father and worked her way out of poverty to attend the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University where she earned law and MBA degrees. Her primary interests in social justice and making sure neighborhoods are safe, clean and ripe for investment is a departure from Cranley’s more institutional approach. Simpson’s authenticity and engaging personality might very well be her greatest strengths. She is as comfortable mingling in city neighborhoods with residents as she is with other elected officials or corporate executives. Her personal experience overcoming poverty positions her to lead and offer a valuable perspective on the issue. Simpson has shown an ability and desire to successfully develop relationships with leaders at the federal level, a potential benefit to a city that has struggled in recent years to up its national profile. She has led on toughening human trafficking laws, advocated for jobs for young people and worked to give city employees parental leave. If Simpson has an advantage, it’s that she represents change in an anti-establishment period. She has positioned herself as the “anti-Cranley.” Whether that will be enough for voters to put her in the mayor’s office remains to be seen.

Big question: Simpson’s lack of legislative accomplishments during her six years on City Council is perceived as a shortcoming. Her vision seems sound, but the question remains can she follow through? Simpson has shown an ability to build up programs and projects after starting out with little to no resources, but the results and impact of those programs have been mixed. Simpson’s had the interests of Avondale in mind in lobbying Children’s Hospital for more resources as it sought to expand in the historic neighborhood, but her approach was off-putting.

John Cranley

Strengths: Mayor Cranley is a known quantity. As a business owner, attorney and a West Sider, Cranley has longstanding ties to the movers and shakers in Cincinnati. He is right when he talks about the progress Cincinnati has made under his leadership. The city has not made huge leaps, but its slow, steady growth has been commendable. Cranley spent a lot of political capital on last summer’s parks levy defeat, but otherwise, he has been a solid and steady leader whose list of accomplishments speaks for itself. He solved the city’s pension crisis, played a central role in forging an agreement with Hamilton County on the Metropolitan Sewer District, pulled together leaders from across the region to work on the Child Poverty Collaborative and increased the number of city contracts given to minority-owned businesses by 17 percent, all while getting city streets paved. Cranley has shown a commitment to safety by putting 100more police officers on the streets and to police-community relations through his refresh of the historic Collaborative Agreement, which examines city police patterns and practices. He has even shown a willingness to push for proposals he feels are right and just even if they might be publicly unpopular. This editorial board was critical of Cranley’s push to circumvent the collective bargaining process and give raises to certain city employees. Cranley also declared Cincinnati a sanctuary city at a time when President Trump and his administration were threatening to pull federal funding from cities that did so. Cincinnati, in many ways, is better off than it was four years ago, and Cranley deserves some credit for that.

Big question: When Cranley ran for mayor four years ago, he had plans and a vision to move the city forward that voters could latch onto. Most of what this editorial board has heard from the incumbent mayor during this campaign is more of the same. Historically, that’s what incumbents do – not rock the boat too much if what you’re doing is working. But if Cincinnati is to move from good to great, its leaders must look for new ways to build upon success, not merely mind the ship. Cranley’s sometimes abrupt, autocratic leadership style rubs some the wrong way, raising the question has his style made him wear out his welcome?